No Arabic abstract
Twin domains are naturally present in the topological insulator BiSe{} and affect strongly its properties. While studies of its behavior for ideal BiSe{} structure exist, little is known about their possible interaction with other defects. Extra information are needed especially for the case of artificial perturbation of topological insulator states by magnetic doping, which has attracted a lot of attention recently. Employing ab initio calculations based on layered Greens function formalism, we study the interaction between twin planes in BiSe{}. We show the influence of various magnetic and non-magnetic chemical defects on the twin plane formation energy and discuss the related modification of their distribution. Furthermore, we examine the change of dopants magnetic properties at sites in the vicinity of a twin plane, and the dopants preference to occupy such sites. Our results suggest that twin planes repel each other at least over distance of $3-4$~nm. However, in the presence of magnetic Mn and Fe defects a close TP placement is preferred. Furthermore, calculated twin plane formation energies indicate that in this situation their formation becomes suppressed. Finally, we discuss the influence of twin planes on the surface band gap.
We report magnetotransport measurements on magnetically doped (Bi,Sb)$_2$Te$_3$ films grown by molecular beam epitaxy. In Hallbar devices, logarithmic dependence on temperature and bias voltage are obseved in both the longitudinal and anomalous Hall resistance. The interplay of disorder and electron-electron interactions is found to explain quantitatively the observed logarithmic singularities and is a dominant scattering mechanism in these samples. Submicron scale devices exhibit intriguing quantum oscillations at high magnetic fields with dependence on bias voltage. The observed quantum oscillations can be attributed to bulk and surface transport.
Quantum mechanics postulates that any measurement influences the state of the investigated system. Here, by means of angle-, spin-, and time-resolved photoemission experiments and ab initio calculations we demonstrate how non-equal depopulation of the Dirac cone (DC) states with opposite momenta in V-doped and pristine topological insulators (TIs) created by a photoexcitation by linearly polarized synchrotron radiation (SR) is followed by the hole-generated uncompensated spin accumulation and the SR-induced magnetization via the spin-torque effect. We show that the photoexcitation of the DC is asymmetric, that it varies with the photon energy, and that it practically does not change during the relaxation. We find a relation between the photoexcitation asymmetry, the generated spin accumulation and the induced spin polarization of the DC and V 3d states. Experimentally the SR-generated in-plane and out-of-plane magnetization is confirmed by the $k_{parallel}$-shift of the DC position and by the splitting of the states at the Dirac point even above the Curie temperature. Theoretical predictions and estimations of the measurable physical quantities substantiate the experimental results.
Topological insulators (TI) are a new class of quantum materials with insulating bulk enclosed by topologically protected metallic boundaries. The surface states of three-dimensional TIs have spin helical Dirac structure, and are robust against time reversal invariant perturbations. This extraordinary property is notably exemplified by the absence of backscattering by nonmagnetic impurities and the weak antilocalization (WAL) of Dirac fermions. Breaking the time reversal symmetry (TRS) by magnetic element doping is predicted to create a variety of exotic topological magnetoelectric effects. Here we report transport studies on magnetically doped TI Cr-Bi2Se3. With increasing Cr concentration, the low temperature electrical conduction exhibits a characteristic crossover from WAL to weak localization (WL). In the heavily doped regime where WL dominates at the ground state, WAL reenters as temperature rises, but can be driven back to WL by strong magnetic field. These complex phenomena can be explained by a unified picture involving the evolution of Berry phase with the energy gap opened by magnetic impurities. This work demonstrates an effective way to manipulate the topological transport properties of the TI surface states by TRS-breaking perturbations.
We combine low energy muon spin rotation (LE-$mu$SR) and soft-X-ray angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (SX-ARPES) to study the magnetic and electronic properties of magnetically doped topological insulators, (Bi,Sb)$_2$Te$_3$. We find that one achieves a full magnetic volume fraction in samples of (V/Cr)$_x$(Bi,Sb)$_{2-x}$Te$_3$ at doping levels x $gtrsim$ 0.16. The observed magnetic transition is not sharp in temperature indicating a gradual magnetic ordering. We find that the evolution of magnetic ordering is consistent with formation of ferromagnetic islands which increase in number and/or volume with decreasing temperature. Resonant ARPES at the V $L_3$ edge reveals a nondispersing impurity band close to the Fermi level as well as V weight integrated into the host band structure. Calculations within the coherent potential approximation of the V contribution to the spectral function confirm that this impurity band is caused by V in substitutional sites. The implications of our results on the observation of the quantum anomalous Hall effect at mK temperatures are discussed.
Granular conductors form an artificially engineered class of solid state materials wherein the microstructure can be tuned to mimic a wide range of otherwise inaccessible physical systems. At the same time, topological insulators (TIs) have become a cornerstone of modern condensed matter physics as materials hosting metallic states on the surface and insulating in the bulk. However it remains to be understood how granularity affects this new and exotic phase of matter. We perform electrical transport experiments on highly granular topological insulator thin films of Bi$_2$Se$_3$ and reveal remarkable properties. We observe clear signatures of topological surface states despite granularity with distinctly different properties from conventional bulk TI systems including sharp surface state coupling-decoupling transitions, large surface state penetration depths and exotic Berry phase effects. We present a model which explains these results. Our findings illustrate that granularity can be used to engineer designer TIs, at the same time allowing easy access to the Dirac-fermion physics that is inaccessible in single crystal systems.